Books and Ideas

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, 2018.

Reclaiming Language: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Reclaiming Language: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o

Shortly before his death, The Nation spoke with the Kenyan writer about his most recent essay collection Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas.

Jun 2, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Rhoda Feng

Michael Ledeen on floral sofa in front of plants and a window facing trees in sunshine.

Michael Ledeen Was the Forrest Gump of American Fascism Michael Ledeen Was the Forrest Gump of American Fascism

From Iran-contra to Iraq war WMD lies to Trumpism, this right-wing pundit kept subverting democracy. 

May 30, 2025 / Jeet Heer

Peter Kuper’s Graphic Novel, Where the Insects Draw Us

Peter Kuper’s Graphic Novel, Where the Insects Draw Us Peter Kuper’s Graphic Novel, Where the Insects Draw Us

Insectopolis explores the often-unseen—and rapidly disappearing—world we share.

May 29, 2025 / Steve Brodner

Wendy Raymond, president of Haverford College; Robert Manuel, president of DePaul University; David Cole, a professor at Georgetown Law and former legal director of the ACLU; and Jeffrey Armstrong, president of California Polytechnic State University testify during a hearing before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on May 7, 2025, in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Beyond The Ivy League: Stopping the Spread of Antisemitism on American Campuses.”

McCarthyism 2.0: Reflections on Testifying in the House Antisemitism Hearings McCarthyism 2.0: Reflections on Testifying in the House Antisemitism Hearings

I soon realized that neither the law nor the facts matter to the Committee on Education’s Republican inquisitors.

May 28, 2025 / David Cole

The Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, 2017.

The Place Where Millennials Go to Die The Place Where Millennials Go to Die

Vincenzo Latronico’s novel Perfection, a cutting portrait of bourgeois expats in Berlin, examines a generation's fixations and degradation in the German capital.

May 28, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Hanson O’Haver 

Trump media microphones

We Can’t Afford to Let the Fourth Estate Topple We Can’t Afford to Let the Fourth Estate Topple

For all the deserved criticism of the American media, it remains one of the strongest pillars propping up what’s left of democracy in a time that’s been anything but good for the ...

May 21, 2025 / Nan Levinson

The Ugly History of the Law Used to Target Mahmoud Khalil

The Ugly History of the Law Used to Target Mahmoud Khalil The Ugly History of the Law Used to Target Mahmoud Khalil

From the moment the McCarran-Walter Act was passed in 1952, The Nation has sounded the alarm about the danger it posed to politically active immigrants.

May 21, 2025 / Richard Kreitner

A view of Athens, Greece (circa 1900).

What Was the Polis? What Was the Polis?

For the Greeks, the idea was a fluid one—a literal place and a civic ideal that allowed for democracy to flourish.

May 21, 2025 / Books & the Arts / FT

The Return of the Nuclear Threat

The Return of the Nuclear Threat The Return of the Nuclear Threat

While most of the world looked away, a new nuclear arms race has broken out between the US, Russia, and China, raising the risk of nuclear confrontation to the highest in decades....

May 19, 2025 / Feature / Jimmy Tobias

Altadena, California, after the January 2025 fires.

How Should Los Angeles Rebuild After the Fires? How Should Los Angeles Rebuild After the Fires?

In the aftermath of this year's catastrophic fires, architects and urban planners begin to consider how to rebuild.

May 19, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Karrie Jacobs

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